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Session Forty-Nine, Eleven P.M.
The session began with the party and the First and Forsaken Lion plotting to gather all the Deathlords in the heart of fallen Meru and stage an ambush there, with all their armies at their backs. The Green Lady offered her assistant (and was accepted)... and the Deathlords began arriving. First came the Walker in Darkness, "the Deathlord in simplest form" according to the Lady. Holy light was his bane... a simultaneous Sol's Glory and a Zenith cleansing knocked him down. Next, three Deathlords at once. The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils' weakness was sheer physical might, coupled with adaptation; Largo caught her lion-snake-chimera form in his tongs, threw her down, and rode her like a mechanical bull. Wrestling her to the ground, he applied some Dog Whisperer techniques to break the wild animal. To deal with the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears, someone had to resist her temptation; Amber (uncannily alike in appearance), rejected her sexual advances with incredible (and throat-crushing) panache. To defeat the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible, the party had to see through the lies he spun and deal with his army; Takara mowed his army down with a lightning-lit Coatl (and Shade's enthusiastic piloting). More waves of undead melted against Fern's magic... as Takara stole the Bishop's mitre and embarked on a program of calculated, insouciant insults. Kai fended off his mortal followers by being a phoenix, then converted them to Sun-worship Eye and Seven Despairs appeared; Fern took a moment to explain to him just how pathetic he was, and how much of a waste of time fighting him was; when the layers of dead pride sloughed off him, she talked him (more gently) right into Lethe. When the Clockwork Baron leapt at her in his enormous bonestrider, Fern dismantled it as she dodged away; when he erupted out, she encased him in an Impervious Sphere of Water and left him to roll down the mountain. Finally, then, the Walker in Darkness clawed his way out of the ground and tried to attack Kai. He only managed to deal a nick before her fires disintegrated him. And a bare moment later, the ground heaved, rolled -- and they were standing atop the Juggernaut. The Mask of Winters confronted them, smiling and smug in assurance that the party's oath would protect him. Ember, inside the Juggernaut, tried to steer it away from the pit to Oblivion (remnants of the Deathlords' gate, torn wide by the Juggernaut's passage) below it, asking for advice on destroying it. Fern smashed its physical controls and its magical binding simultaneously; it started swatting at the Mask. Portals to the heart of Yu-Shan appeared randomly; dark figures darted in. Takara followed them, finding that one was the Dowager; killing her just turned her Dowager into a giant robot, who Largo wrecked with his warstrider. More Deathlords -- the Smouldering Lord, the Princess Magnificent. ...And that's when the Jade Pleasure Dome cracked open. Just a small crack, but light shone out, and a figure emerged. Sol Invictus himself caught the Mask of Winters by the throat and absolved the Eclipse oath protecting him, tossing him to the party. (Amber tore his mask away; the confused, amnesiac man beneath crumbled to dust before Kai's mirror.) The Princess Magnificent fled to the Underworld, with the First and Forsaken Lion following. Fern Shaped the laws of radiant energy away from the Smouldering Lord, freezing him to ice. With the last two Deathlords fled to the Underworld, the Sun and Luna themselves congratulated the party and decided to join the last of the hunt. Down to the Underworld they went. ''--An orichalcum model of the world. Round. Infinite. A cup emptied of water. A rod burned to ash. A sword, given as a broken treaty. A feather, melting away into the air... The world is filed down. Etched. Given edges. Set into the pommel of a sword. A hand reaches to take it... ...Karn Delman.'' The party snapped out of the vision, realizing horribly that they had just played out the Prophecy. Their urging was hopeless: Sol and Luna were still with them in the Underworld when Karn, his Solar Essence fused with something Abyssal and with Ligier himself, appeared before them. Changed and burning with fury, he accused Creation itself of greed. Its existence stands between a multitude of other worlds -- other Primordials' world-concepts -- and the space they need to be born, he declared; so he would destroy it, loosing those Never-Born worlds. First step: make the Sun set forever. Green vines twined from the ground up the Sun's legs, pinning him in place as Karn began striking the Sun's tokens from his hands. One by one the Virtues fell, each with a declaration of vengeance from Karn. Even Gaia herself, awoken and striding into the fray, could not stand against Karn: his sword struck her down, and Luna spirited her away in berserk agony. What then could the party do but gather what had fallen? Fern took up the shield, Takara the horn, Kai the olive branch, and Largo the spear -- after the spear is driven straight through both the Sun and Kai, who tried to shield him. Dying, wrapped in Dulerod's vines, Sol whispered "I'm sorry." The Solar Exaltations fled. So did the party, after trading a few last words with each other, leaping into the waiting Coatl. Flying back to Creation, powerful but mortal, their newest challenge will be simply surviving. Once they've done that, they can worry about the world. Category:Exalted: The Green Knights